Producers Tease How Agents Of SHIELD Will Dovetail With Doctor Strange

Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD has a history of “soft” crossovers with events going on in the latest MCU movies – rather than featuring characters from the films, SHIELD’s storylines have often dealt the wider fallout of what’s happened on the big screen. The most notable occasion was when the end of Captain American: Winter Soldier changed the whole format of the show, with Coulson and co having to operate in secret, going rogue. But we also got to see them doing clear-up after the Greenwich battle in Thor: The Dark World (a film BUZZ loves even if no one else does).

This season will be airing at the same time Doctor Strange introduces some serious supernatural hoodoo to the MCU, and Agents Of SHIELD’s executive producers have been telling EW.com how the show is going to incorporate the strangeness.

“Our ties are at times very direct and at times are more thematic,” says Jed Whedon about the links between the films and the TV show. “The tie this year will feel more of a reflection of the movie, less an interweaving plot. As that movie hits the world, it comes at the right time in our show, and you will see some of those same ideas being explored.”

“At the right time” might be a reference to some big moment in the Ghost Rider storyline, since the flame headed biker is introducing a supernatural vibe to the show in a big way.

“The same questions that our team is exploring leading up to the premiere of Doctor Strange, perhaps some of those concepts will be reflected in the movie and then carried through,” adds Maurissa Tancharoen.

“Hopefully some of the questions that we’re asking will be answered by it and then pose some new themes and ideas for us to explore,” agrees Whedon. “Doctor Strange will introduce some new ideas, but we’re starting to lay the first brick in the yellow brick road to that.”

But season four won’t be totally about mystical mumbo jumbo. We saw Radcliffe creating AI at the end of season three and this will also be an important ongoing theme. “We want to slowly play with the morality of building these things, whether or not we even should and the scientific questions that come along with it,” says Whedon. “That’s the first step that we explore before we inevitably get into other things.”

As long as it keeps John Hannah as Radcliffe in the show, BUZZ is happy. He was a blast in season three!